By Colette Weeks / For The Herald
Our state Legislature’s march toward secrecy is speeding up, despite lawsuits, massive public outcry and even a ruling from the state Supreme Court that was largely against lawmakers.
In the latest move against government transparency, the public records officer of the Washington House of Representatives sent an internal email in July to House members outlining a restart of a 30-day email auto-deletion system and a guide on how to get rid of other emails even faster.
This action will destroy records on a regular basis and encourage lawmakers to delete certain emails they deem “transitory” even sooner.
Pushing boundaries for flexibility is one thing. The latest move by the state House of Representatives is much more than that. It’s a power grab straight out of the hands of the people they’re supposed to serve.
A state Supreme Court ruling in 2019 found individual lawmakers are subject to the Public Records Act but left a question mark about how the chambers themselves must behave. The House, led by House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, has been poking at that weak spot ever since.
Those wanting answers won’t get much from this House. With more power to delete records, lawmakers can hide what they want in providing documents to the pesky public.
What does “transitory” mean? It covers a wide scope and has zero oversight, so it can apply to pretty much anything. If lawmakers want to hide something, it’s now OK to toss it in the “transitory” delete pile. No one would ever know.
Left sitting in the dark, we have nothing but unanswered questions. How will we know how a lawmaker arrived at a decision to vote on a bill or whether they are working in our interest? We won’t.
This isn’t about partisanship. This is equal-opportunity anger at repeated attempts by those in both parties to steal and nullify the people’s power. Silence is acceptance.
“It’s hard to believe that after the Washington Supreme Court and the people of Washington clearly told the Legislature to obey the Public Records Act, House leadership continues to think up ways to withhold government-produced documents requested by citizens,” said George Erb, board member and secretary of the Washington Coalition for Open Government.
The public outcry Washington residents made in 2018 after lawmakers tried to exempt themselves from the Public Records Act convinced then-Gov. Jay Inslee to veto the bill. The next year, the state Supreme Court ruled that lawmakers are subject to the records law, but with some limits. Pushing to define those limits in the broadest way has become a House mission.
As secrecy reigns, WashCOG would like to point out that the new policy has at least two major flaws:
It sanctions deleting an email by defining it as “transitory.” That will solidify the direction we are heading, where lawmakers remove many pieces of written information from public view. That will leave us with only formal, finished laws and policies. That flies in the face of what voters wanted when they pushed in 1972 for what became the Public Records Act. And frankly, it flies in the face of transparency and the concept of our democratic republic.
It says the prime sponsor of a bill is the only one who must retain emails related to that bill. But what about what all the others voting on legislation had to say? Their words and interactions are not transitory, in our opinion. Their conversations, suggestions, promises and ideas matter.
This is proof that the slide away from transparency continues. WashCOG studied the state of the Public Records Act and issued a report in 2024 that concluded the people’s right to know was eroding, and the Legislature was the leading cause.
We are fighting for transparency, but it seems lawmakers are doubling down. It appears the bad actors won’t back off until the voters and courts demand openness.
That’s where you come in. We hope the people will join us in letting their legislators know that this must not stand. We reject the concept that all they owe us is the finished product when they make laws or do the people’s work. As teachers often require in school, you must show your work to prove you did it the right way.
Don’t forget, they’re supposed to work for us.
Colette Weeks is executive director for the Washington Coalition for Open Government. WashCOG is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 2002, and an independent, broad-based advocate for access to public records, open meetings and informed citizens. Follow on social media and visit its website at washcog.org.
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